[Hoot Gibson]

Exactly. And, mixed with appalachian high btu coal, and the scrubbers I have helped to install in the last 10 years, Power plants can now burn that coal. as long as it costing more to mine appalachian coal than it sells for, and natural gas is cheap, appalachian coal will suffer.

eriously:

They won't sell it until it sells for more than what it takes to mine it. As long as Montana is selling coal for 6-8 dollars a ton, and the natural gas prices stay dirt cheap, Appalachian coal will continue to die. Powerhouses are mixing a little low sulfur coal(appalachian) with the higher sulfur, lower btu(wester coal) at present. This is all possible because of the scrubbers that have been installed on coal powerhouses. Until the other prices rise, coal in the coalfields will die a slow death. Like I said, coal companies are sitting on tons of permits right now, and will continue to, until they can make a profit on their coal. That won't happen as long as Montana, and other western states have cheap coal, and natural gas is selling at record low prices, which isn't going to happen in the near future.

Coal News and Markets

"Coal News and Markets Report" summarizes spot coal prices by coal commodity regions (i.e., Central Appalachia (CAP), Northern Appalachia (NAP), Illinois Basin (ILB), Powder River Basin (PRB), and Uinta Basin (UIB)) in the United States. The report includes data on average weekly coal commodity spot prices, total monthly coal production, eastern monthly coal production, and average cost of metallurgical coal at coke plants and export docks. The historical data for coal commodity spot market prices are proprietary and not available for public release.

Average weekly coal commodity spot prices
(dollars per short ton)